Yet more corporate chess pieces have been moved at Yahoo!, which yesterday replaced its CTO Raymie Stata with Ash Munshi.

According to All Things Digital, Stata hasn't turned his back on the flailing firm, instead preferring to take on the role of "entrepreneur in residence".

Yahoo said Stata was simply returning to his "entrepreneurial roots", having resigned the CTO job he took on at the Purple Palace in June 2010.

Prior to that position, Stata had played an instrumental role in the company's move to a common distributed infrastructure as its chief architect.

Munshi was described by Yahoo! as having a "well-established career managing successful global technology organisations at the most senior levels with a laser focus on meeting and exceeding customer needs".

The rejig is the latest in a series of high-profile comings-and-goings at Yahoo!

Carol Bartz was unceremoniously sacked by the company's chairman Roy Bostock over the dog and bone last month. Since then, speculation around Yahoo!'s future has centred on a number of would-be suitors including Microsoft sniffing around the firm.

Yahoo!'s co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang has also reportedly considered taking the struggling web company out of the stock market in a deal with private equity firms. ®